VACATION!!!

Part 1:

Ryan and I took a vacation last week to San Diego! Brooke stayed in Longview with grandparents. I was sad to leave her because this was the first time since she was born that I have been away from her (besides going out for the night). I felt like I was always forgetting something while we were in San Diego! We did have a fun vacation. The weather was fabulous. It was cloudy the first couple of days, but the temps were in the 70s-80s with a nice cool ocean breeze.

The first day we decided to sleep in and take it easy. We toured the USS Midway aircraft carrier. San Diego has the largest navy base in the US. This was a really cool ship and it was fascinating to learn how the soldiers lived and worked while on the Midway. It was in operation during WW2 all the way through Desert Storm!

The next day we spent the entire day at the San Diego Zoo, which is one of the best zoo's in the US. They had pandas, polar bears, 2-hump and 1-hump camels, lots of koalas, a fossa, free roaming peacocks, and everything else in between. I felt like we walked 10 miles that day. It was so much fun. Ryan and I love to visit zoos. Here are a few of my favorite photos.

Mama camel and her babyPolar Bear

Koala family

Panda eating bamboo

Otter posing for a picture

Peacock strutting his stuff

That night we ate fish tacos, which were invented in San Diego. It was good to have a local treat.

The next day we went to Balboa park, which is full of museums and exotic plants. This must have been where Dr. Seuss got his ideas for illustrations of plants in his books. I felt like I was looking a plants and trees that came from his books.

I have no idea what this plant is, but it looks like it is straight out of a Dr. Seuss Book.

We had purchased a discount card called the San Diego Card and it includes admission to most attractions in and around town. So, we visited as many museums as we could. We went to the Science center, Museum of Natural History, Model railroad museum, Museum of photographic arts, botanical building, Air and Space museum, and Automotive museum. It was really neat to see all these things and even better knowing that we saved money.

The next day we went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. It is more of an African safari park. We started of the day with a tram ride through the wild animals. It reminded us a lot of our Fossil Rim Park just 1 1/2hrs from DFW. They did a really nice job replicating the animals natural habitats and most of the time you didn't notice the fences/gates. It was the best views we have ever had of cheetahs and lions. They also had a really rare type of rhinoceros that is almost extinct. They also had a lot of other animals that we walked around and watched. After the wild animal park we headed to the Museum of Making Music. This museum was really neat and had many rare types of instruments. You also got to sample some instruments that are either rare or really expensive. Since, this was the last day of our discount card we really wanted to get our money's worth, so we headed over to an indoor go cart track. Even though I couldn't ride, Ryan had lots of fun.

The next day we headed up to Torrey Pines state park and did some hiking. We had gorgeous views of the ocean and the torrey pines. They are the rarest type of pine and only grow in San Diego.

Torrey Pine

Next we headed to a beach in La Jolla. First we stopped at a Whole Foods and picked up some sandwiches for a picnic and then laid out on the beach. The water was way to cold (~65 degrees) for me to get in, but Ryan got used to it and had fun playing in the ocean. After we got cleaned up we headed to Coronado island, which we nicknamed "clean" Galveston. We walked on the beach and took pictures of the sunset. Then we had a nice dinner along their main strip and enjoyed some window shopping.
Coronado island

Someone's sandcastle that we thought looked neat in the setting sun.

The next day was travel day, but we had some time to spare before our plane took off. We went to Point Loma, which is a light house on part of the naval base. You can also drive to the cliffs and look at the ocean pools created in the rock.

It was a really nice vacation! I am glad Ryan and me got to spend some alone time together especially before baby #2 arrives. Thanks to all the family that helped make this possible by watching Brooke. My next blog will be about Brooke's vacation away from us.